


Deep Blue Sea

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-09-30
Updated: 2001-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 10:39:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11334072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Mulder looks for a second chance





	Deep Blue Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

The Deep Blue Sea by Laurel

Title: The deep blue sea  
Author: Laurel   
E-mail:   
Date: September, 2001  
Archive: yes to DitB, anyone else just ask first  
Pairing: Sk/K/M  
Summary: Mulder looks for a second chance  
Rating: NC-17 for m/m sex  
Spoilers: Anything up to and including Existence  
Notes: A sequel to Siren Song. You might want to read that one first to get your bearings. Poems in order of appearance are: "Fire and Reason" by Dorothy Livesay; "Pre-amphibian" by Margaret Atwood; "Death by drowning" by Elizabeth Brewster and "Variation on the word sleep" by Margaret Atwood. Please note that each stanza of each poem is marked with an *asterisk*.

* * *
    
    
    *I cannot shut out the night--
    Nor its sharp clarity.*

It was too little too late again. Mulder sighed heavily, lying on his couch in the dark, as was his custom when his mood was low. He had only himself to blame. He had lost yet another chance. It was the story of his life really. He had failed. Had failed them all. He took out a bottle of scotch; something Skinner had given him once after a difficult case. Hell, weren't they all difficult? There was his sister, first of all. He had been helpless to stop them from taking her when he was a boy. There was Scully, always Scully, encouraging him, supporting him, loving him. Their child had been a miracle but their love had been diverted like a river by a dam. They had finally gone their separate ways after a few months. They had given up trying so hard to recapture whatever magic had sustained their partnership. The kiss had been a death knell. What was it, their third? All those years he had yearned for her but after the birth of their beautiful son and the danger was over, that kiss was cold as death.
    
    
    *The many blinds we draw,
    You and I,
    The many fires we light
    Can never quite obliterate
    The irony of stars,
    The deliberate moon,
    The last, unsolved finality of night.*

There was Alex, of course. One kiss from him was seared into his flesh. He had spent countless nights remembering their bodies brutally slamming together, never in lust, only in hatred, a hatred that Mulder was ashamed of. He had lost his chance with Alex long ago and now Walter had disappeared. Mulder had done everything he could to find him. Had spoken to passengers and crew members, had studied the currents, had gone over the search area long after the Coast Guard gave up hope. He began to believe once Walter returned he would have a second chance. Bitterly he swallowed the dregs remaining in his glass and refilled it. He looked about his apartment. Everything silently mocked him: the orange basketball, the swirling, amber liquid and the rapidly melting ice, the oblivious fish in their tank, the masking tape forming an x on his window. The liquor did its job. He fell asleep on the couch once more, alone.

**************************************************************
    
    
    *Again so I subside
    nudged by the softening
    driftwood of your body
    tangle on you like a water-
    weed caught
    on a submerged treelimb*

For Alex and Walter, the days and nights melded into one long life of love-making and discoveries. They had scant memories of their former lives above the surface. These memories were no longer needed. Their skills for coping, for survival, were changed, as they had been changed. With the change they had no need of material possessions anymore. They only objects they had came from the ocean to decorate their home at the sandy bottom. Here, there were corals in every conceivable color. There was the sweetest pink and the deepest blue, shy lavender and bold red, spotlighted by silvery fish that darted among the sea plants. There were shells of pearly luminescence and pebbles of every hue.
    
    
    *with sleep like a swamp
    growing, closing around me
    sending its tendrils through the brown
    sediments of darkness
    where we   transmuted   are
    part of this warm rotting
    of vegetable flesh
    this quiet spawning of roots*

They slept in the deep dark, safe in each other's arms and woke again to climb to the sunlit surface to feed and breathe the cool ocean air. They made love while tumbling with the waves. They slithered over and under each other, teasing and testing, swimming and stroking their way through the foam, dividing the fish that swam in schools.
    
    
    *released
    from the lucidities of day
    when you are something I can
    trace a line around, with eyes
    cut shapes
    from air, the element
    where we
    must calculate according to
    solidities*

Walter would pretend to be Neptune and Alex, his Aphrodite, the ultimate symbol of beauty and love, born in the foam of the sea, born out of blood. Walter would pluck flowers and sea plants from the bottom and lace their stems through his lover's hair, delighting in the smiles and kisses he was rewarded with. Alex would gather materials to feather their underwater nest: fronds of sea plants and strong branches of driftwood. He decorated it with the most delicate of shells and rolled rocks in front of the cavern to defend it from predators.
    
    
    *but here I blur
    into you   our breathing sinking
    to green millenniums
    and    sluggish   in our blood
    all ancestors
    are warm fish moving*

At night, safe in their cave, they made love while the sun set, setting the water on fire with brilliant orange and red. There, Walter would take his beloved fiercely, kissing him and caressing his firm cock until the pearls of passion floated from the swollen tip. Their tails would slap in the water, churning up algae and sand in a storm of movement.
    
    
    *The earth
    shifts, bringing
    the moment before focus, when
    these tides recede; and we
    see each other through the
    hardening scales of waking*

Every day they searched for the face of their lost beloved among the faces of the men in the boats. They would disappear in a mist of sea spray when discovery was a danger. Down into the deep blue sea they would dive, to hide and wait. They knew he would come for them. The older one assured his lover he would appear and he did not lie.
    
    
    *stranded, astounded
    in a drying world*

Alex sang to his beloved every night and the other would echo back. They perfected their song until they knew they could lure their lost love back when he should appear again. At dusk they watched the stars twinkle like brilliant slivers of broken shells. They prayed for the one above the surface to return. They still remembered how to pray. At nightfall they would return to their underwater home, curling up within each other's arms and sleep. They dreamed of the time when the man would come to complete their triad. They still had the ability to dream.
    
    
    *we flounder, the air
    ungainly in our new lungs
    with sunlight steaming merciless on the shores of morning*

************************************************************
    
    
    *Plunging downward through the slimy water
    He discovered, as the fear grew worse,
    That life, not death, was what he had been after:
    Ironic to die in life's symbol and source.*

Mulder dove to the very bottom of the swimming pool at the gym. No other agents were present. He was alone. He thought of drowning himself but knew that unless he was weighted down he would float back up to the surface. The body struggles to life, even after the soul has died. 
    
    
    *Drowning was not so easy as it looked from shore,
    He had thought of sinking down through layers of peace
    
    To depths where mermaids sang.  He would be lapped over
    By murmuring waves that lulled him into rest.*

This was a living death. A mockery of a peaceful existence. True, he had Scully. He had the baby. It wasn't enough. A loyal friend, a child that belonged to him by blood or love alone, a salvaged career was not enough. He needed the fragile peace of true love, the headiness of lust, the devotion of someone who completely understood him who would hold him when the nightmares came. He swam up from the deep end, sputtering up water and choking.
    
    
    *But all death is a kind of strangulation,
    He had been told once and remembered now,
    Choking on water like a rope, and coughing
    Its bloody taste from his mouth.  He had not known
    Before how the body struggled to survive
    And must be forced, and forced again, to die.*

He would search the depthless ocean again. He would find Walter, dead or alive. If it came to it, he would die in the same waters that had claimed his friend. He padded to the changing room, his feet slapping the wet tiles. The boom of the door sounded like a gun shot to his ears. He closed his eyes, grateful for the water streaming down his face which hid his tears.

*****************************************************************
    
    
    *I would like to watch you sleeping,
    which may not happen.
    I would like to watch you,
    sleeping.  I would like to sleep
    with you, to enter
    your sleep as its smooth dark wave
    slides over my head.*

Mulder looked in astonishment at the sight before him. He rubbed his eyes, scrubbing away the intoxication of the night before. The white sand on the beach rubbed the soles of his feet as he made his way to the shallows. There it was again, the odd music like someone singing a lullaby. It was foreign yet he understood it somehow and it drew him nearer. There was a splash of water and the tails of a pair of magnificent marine creatures sliced through the top layer, creating waves that undulated around his legs. He began to swim, as the sand gave way to clear blue water.
    
    
    *and walk with you through that lucent
    wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
    with its watery sun & three moons
    towards the cave where you must descend,
    towards your worst fear*

The tails disappeared in a splash of foam. He was further out than he'd realized but he'd always been a strong swimmer. He dove under the water with his eyes open and nearly choked as his eyes confirmed what his brain could not process. They were mermen. Honest to God mythical marine creatures. Astounded, he swam harder, following the disappearing tails, the smooth pale bodies and that song that was at once arousing and comforting. They swam back to him playfully and led the way down deeper. His lungs burst with the effort of the depth and as he looked at their faces and realized who they were, his mouth opened to let his air out in a torrent of bubbles. But they smiled at him kindly, almost shyly and held his hands tighter. Mulder took another breath but his lungs did not fill with water. The cavern was dark. The sunlight above did not reach here. Even in the dimness he could make out Alex's angelic face, lines smoothed out into sweetness. Walter was strong and handsome as ever, the hair circling his head silver as though the water had leached out what color had been there. It was longer and it was tied back with a ribbon of seaweed. He looked down at the two hands holding him and realized that Alex was whole. Alex kissed his frown away and tugged him into their home insistently.
    
    
    *I would like to give you the silver
    branch, the small white flower, the one
    word that will protect you
    from the grief at the center
    of your dream, from the grief
    at the center.  I would like to follow
    you up the long stairway
    again & become
    the boat that would row you back
    carefully, a flame
    in two cupped hands
    to where your body lies
    beside me, and you enter
    it as easily as breathing in*

They swam around him, slithering around his body, caressing him. His pale legs whipped up the water in panic, until they curled their tails around him and calmed him with gentle hands. Alex kissed him, his breath cool and tasting of ocean air. His tongue bathed him, working its way into his ear shyly at first, then boldly, once he had gauged Fox's positive reaction. Walter divested him of his bathing trunks and t-shirt. His naked torso gleamed in the clear water, allowing Walter to suckle at his pink nipples. In unison they made love to Fox slowly and thoroughly, kissing and caressing him, until he groaned audibly, bubbles escaping his generous mouth. He was guided between Alex's firm ass while Walter slid into Fox from behind. Alex's rosebud opening was hot as a furnace although his limbs stayed cool even with Fox's urgent grasping of his skin. He thought he was in a dream, or perhaps dead. He didn't want to wake up. If dead, he prayed to the gods that he be allowed to stay in this watery paradise and frolic with the marine creatures and his lovers. There were squeals and groans of completion that broke the water's tranquility and milky seeds of semen floated from spent cocks. Walter and Alex curled around Fox kissing him with swollen red lips. They curled around him snugly until he fell asleep.
    
    
    *I would like to be the air
    that inhabits you for a moment
    only.  I would like to be that unnoticed
    & that necessary.*

They slept until dawn when the sun hit the water with a gentle light. The sky was awash with the sweetest colors of nature: blush pink, gold, apricot and the palest blue. They swept away the purple clouds of night. The moon was a tiny sliver of white in the sky. The water was tranquil, full of fish to feed on. Farther away, the white shoreline revealed the treasures that the tides had left behind: glittering pebbles, driftwood and shells. They fed until they were sated then drew their lover further away from shore for new explorations. Three sets of tails sliced through the water as they showed off their swimming skills. One was brilliant green, shot through with the deepest blue. The second was dull gold, wrought with silver and the third was the color of the forest, deep burgundy and brown, threaded with gold. They dove gracefully back down beneath the surface in a splash of foam.

  
Archived: September 26, 2001 


End file.
